Thursday, September 9, 2010

The Healing Power of Pizza

Pizza is perfect food.

This was explained to me once by a 10 year old, and I happen to agree with him. No one dislikes pizza. Friends who are lactose intolerant scrape off the cheese, and those who can’t eat gluten seek out non-wheat recipes. To say “I don’t like pizza” is not just un-American, it’s oddly inhuman. (I think it’s the first question that they should have asked the replicants in Blade Runner: “do you like pizza?”)

At Tuesday night’s rehearsal the directors came in to see our stage partially covered in a series of sponged gold wedges. This, it turns out, was due to a miscommunication between our stage manager and one of the set designers about the need to “texture” the stage. It was a worthy attempt, but coming late in the game it was a surprise and not a particularly pleasant one. “What’s with all the pizza slices on the set?” said one of the directors. Some low-key grousing began, and at about the third mention of “pizza” one of the actors wandered out.

“Pizza?” he asked.

“We were just talking about the set,” I answered.

“Pizza! That’s what I want!” said another actor, peering out.

“Where’s the pizza?” said another, appearing.

The rumors of pizza were starting to become critical, so we had to explain that no, there was no pizza, and yes, we were continuing on with the tech as soon as we got the current sound dilemma solved.

Last night I ordered two big pizzas from Mad Pizza to be delivered to the theatre. It was still Tech Week, and our rehearsal still didn’t finish till nearly 10:30. But there were no more pizza slices on our stage, and thanks in part to the healing power of cheese, meat and vegetables covering a disc of cooked dough, the general mood transformed from somewhere between “Desperate” and “Despairing” to “Hopeful” and “Helpful.”

About Me

I'm a Seattle-based writer, playwright and director. For the last fifteen years I've worked as a freelance arts journalist, primarily for Seattle Weekly, where I was the theatre critic from 1995-2000, and subsequently as a theatre columnist from 2006-2008, then worked at The 5th Avenue Theatre for two years as their PR Manager. I've recently turned to fiction writing and am currently working on my second novel.